


Coulson's Team

by FemSanzo291



Series: Keeping Secrets [20]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Science, Episode: s01e04 Eye-Spy, Episode: s01e07 The Hub, Episode: s01e08 The Well, Episode: s01e11 The Magical Place, Episode: s01e12 Seeds, Episode: s01e14 T.A.H.I.T.I., Gen, Prosthesis, SHIELD 616 | The Bus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2020-09-30 20:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FemSanzo291/pseuds/FemSanzo291
Summary: When Phil Coulson returned to field work, Alea tried to keep an eye on him from afar. Little did she know that she didn't have to do that. Though she knows that after going to the Guest House with Coulson's team nothing will be the same.





	1. September 8, 2013

**Author's Note:**

> So this part will cover from just before S01.01 of Agents of SHIELD to Thor: The Dark World and stopping at S01.16.

Alea walked down to the R&D lab at the Triskelion. Coulson had asked her weeks ago who she thought would be the best from the science division to join his team. Alea had given him an 'are you kidding me?' look before saying FitzSimmons. She knew why he didn't want to take her if Natasha knew she was going back into the field full time she'd be suspicious. Just like why he needed both a pilot and a specialist because he couldn't take Clint. May filling in for pilot only. At least at first and Ward for the specialist.

She tapped her keycard onto the scanner and was admitted into the lab. From the doorway, she could see Fitz messing with the drones that he called DWARFs and Simmons doing something that she isn't completely clear on what it was. There was no one else in the lab at all.

“FitzSimmons.” This caused both to look up from their work and at her.

“Agent Carter, it’s good to see you again,” Simmons says as she puts down her tools.

“Same. I heard that Coulson ended up picking you for his team.” Alea sits down at a lab table near Fitz.

“Yes. We haven’t had our physicals yet.”

“I know. I don’t expect you to pass them either, but science teams often don’t. I only did because of my background and how I grew up.” Alea watches as Simmons relaxes just a bit. Fitz though tensed a little.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have suggested you two if I didn’t think that you’d be able to handle it. Just don’t let Ward bully you into a corner.” Alea stood and walked out of the lab. She headed to HR next. She wanted to see May before she left the base and ask her to keep an eye on Coulson.

Once she made it to HR she walked down to where she remembered May’s desk to see that for once it wasn’t covered in papers. May returning to the field meant that HR would have to find someone else to do all the paperwork at an amazing rate.

“May, can I talk to you?”

May looked up at her and put the stamp down. Alea knew this meant that you could talk.

“I want you to keep an eye on Coulson for me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you care for him. Also, you know about his family. You are going to be the only one of the team that knows.”

“Alright. What do I need to be looking out for?"

"Him not acting like himself. Also if his chest starts to bother him tell me immediately."

“Alright. How am I to contact you?”

“The Airborne Mobile Command Station that you will be using is outfitted with a private and secure line. It is connected with Edwin. That’s how. It’s up in the cockpit access panel.” Alea says before starting to leave. She turns back though having thought of something, “If anyone asks it is a line to me and why you are doing it is because Coulson is as stubborn as a mule and will need to have it checked out if he’s hurting.”

She knows that having May spy on Coulson will look sketchy to the others on the plane, but Alea knew that it was necessary. This was for Coulson's safety as well as his team. Alea left the offices and headed back to her lab. She knew she'd end up on the plane at some point or another.


	2. October 1 & 2, 2013: Eye-Spy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this took so long. Calculus 2 is trying its hardest to kill me. On the bright side this chapter is on the longer side of things, so there's that.

Alea walked down from the quinjet and into the Bus. Coulson had called her there because he wanted to go over the case that they were headed to. It worried her that he had called her here. If the case ended up being anything close to what they used to work on she wondered how the team would handle it. She walked into Coulson’s office without knocking to see him working on an old SHIELD file.

“What you working on there?” Alea sat down on the arm of the chair. She knew it was bolted down and wouldn’t flip. 

“Carter.” Coulson closes the file before looking up at her. “I need you to look at something and give me your opinion.” He picks up a file that was underneath the file he had just closed. Alea caught the name on the tab on the other file, ‘A. Amador.’

Alea takes the file and opens it. She looks over it to see that it was a gym heist. With twenty-five guards, all dressed the same with masks and the same briefcase, but the gyms were still stolen. “Phil, you have someone that you suspect did this.”

“Amador.” 

Alea’s shoulders tightened at the sound of the captured agent's name. Even though she’d suspected that was what he was going to say because of the file. Alea had known Amador and to say that she was less of a team player then Natasha and May combined was an understatement. Hell, they only knew that she was still alive because of a mission in 2008.

"Very possible. I mean this is the type of thing that SHIELD has taught in the past." Alea handed back the file and looked at Coulson. He was looking at her with eyes that were hoping for this to be the truth. Alea knew that Coulson had thought of Amador as someone that could be saved even then, and so it wasn’t surprising that he still wanted to save her.

“I’m going to talk to May.” Coulson stands from his desk and walks out the door. Alea follows him down the stairs and goes down to the lab. She knows that Coulson wouldn’t want her to do a deep dive on his team so she decided not to. She walked into the lab to see Ward looking over one of Fitz’s new toys.

“Agent Carter! It’s good to see you again.” Simmons turned to see her inside of the doors.

“Hello, FitzSimmons, Ward.” Alea greeted as she walked over to the table in the middle of the room.

“What are you doing here, Carter?” Ward asked as he put the gun down.

“Coulson called me in, Ward. He wanted my opinion on the case that you guys are headed to. I decided to meet him on the jet.” Alea moved to look at the gun that Ward put down. Ward left the room.

“The dendrotoxin gun?”

“Yes. I like the name night-night gun, Simmons and Ward don’t. What do you think?” Fitz asked, his back turned.

“I don’t, Fitz. We’ve had many conversations about your naming schemes. They rival Stark’s in ridiculousness.” Alea turns to see Coulson coming down the steps. He asked Ward something before he headed up the steps. Ward answered as he headed up the steps. Alea watches as he goes over to the SUV and knocks on the window. It rolls down and he asks something to someone inside the SUV. Who gets out not long after. It was a young woman. Alea leaves the lab to join Coulson and who Alea suspected was Skye.

“Skye, I’d like you to meet Agent Alea Carter. Carter, this is the hacker that I picked up, Skye.” Alea rolled her eyes at the fact that Coulson had introduced her with her last name. She knew that it was to keep up appearances, but she still didn’t like it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Agent Carter.” Skye removed an arm from around her computer and held it out. Alea took it and shook it.

They headed up to the command center and learned that Coulson intended for the three of them plus May to go to the crime scene together.

“Fine, but if they ask why I look so young you get to deal with it.” Alea walks off to take a seat at the table. Skye follows her.

“How old are you then? ‘Cause you look like your fourteen.” Skye sits down next to Alea.

“Fifty-three. I was injected with something that stopped my aging process when I was fourteen though.” Alea watches as she opens her laptop. Her face conveyed her shock.

**“Buckle up. We’re about to land,”** May says over the loudspeaker.

Coulson comes over and sits next to Alea. The three of them buckle up. Alea leans back and looks up at the ceiling. Counting the seconds until they landed knowing that May wouldn’t give any more warning time than necessary before they landed. It was only about twenty seconds before she felt the landing gear engage and another forty before it’s on the ground. Alea unbuckled herself before sliding out of the seat once Coulson had gotten up. He goes to inform May of their plans.

Skye shuts her computer before picking it up and going over to what Alea assumed was her bunk. She slid open the door and put the laptop on her bed. Alea makes note of the fact that her bunk was the first one after leaving the main part of the living quarters. Once Coulson came back with May they headed down to the SUV. Alea got in on the passenger side door and slid into the front seat. Coulson took the driver’s seat forcing both May and Skye into the back seat.

It was a silent ride to the subway, but once there Coulson started to brief the other two. Coulson signed some paperwork to get them into the subway car.

*“There are people in the world with superpowers, right? What if this woman has ESP or something?”

“There are no credible studies that support precognition, telepathy, or extrasensory perception.”*

Alea snorted at May’s words. Though she’d never participated in any studies so there was that. “Still, the fact that she closes her eyes is either important or not, and I’m going with the first. I don’t think we’ll get much more from down here. Subways never give good DNA samples.”

“Give me a second to check something before we leave.” Skye pulls out her cell and grins. “I have wifi down here, and if men in red masks got on I’d Instagram it.” Skye turns her phone to reveal a picture of the men on the subway.

“We’ll have to go back to the Bus to go through the pictures.” Alea looks over at Coulson. 

Once they were back at the Bus, Alea pulls up the tagging software in Coulson’s office and lets Skye input the data. Once it gets going Alea looks over at Coulson. “The only truly good thing about technology is that it makes our job so much easier.”

“It does. Remember that op in 2000 in Japan?”

“The one that I had to teach Clint some Japanese because we had to search so much space?” Alea paused to wait for Coulson to confirm and he did with a nod, “Yeah, tech would have helped so much back then. Hell, this program was in its infancy back then.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was one of the hardest pieces of software I’ve ever made and I made the security system that SHIELD runs off of.”

It was then that Alea caught a familiar face, Amador. She was standing behind a few of the men in the masks. Coulson calls for the team to meet in the command center before turning to Skye. 

“Do you need me to run facial recognition?” 

“No, I know her. Her name is Akela Amador.” Coulson says before heading out of his office. Alea and Skye follow.

Once they make it down there May stops them from entering. “How sure of it that it’s Amador?” 

“There are only four people that could have done that. Two of them are standing here one is somewhere on a SHIELD mission and the last is Amador.” Coulson goes around May to brief the team. 

After that May heads to the cockpit. Alea follows her as Skye says that she wasn’t special. Alea makes sure that the door is shut tight and sits down in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Carter, do you think that this is a smart idea?”

“For Coulson to be going after Amador? Or not informing HQ?”

“Both.”

“Coulson views Amador as one of his worst mistakes. He wants to fix it. As for not informing HQ, it’s not a big deal. If it gets out of hand I’ll just set off the SOS call on Edwin. It’ll call for Hill to send out a recovery team to my location.”

May nods and concentrates on getting the Bus in the air. Alea plugs her phone into the instrument panel. She sets up Edwin's autopilot system before speaking. "May, your tense. Let's go spar go you can let go of some of that tension." Alea stands from her seat and May follows.

Once down in the cargo hold, Alea helps May pull out the mats and lay them out. Both pull off their jackets and kick off their shoes before getting onto the mat. They fall into base stances before counting to ten and starting.

They were trading blows for close to ten minutes before Alea decided that she would kick it up a notch and use her left hand to attack with rather than just defense. She landed a solid hit to May’s shoulder before grabbing her wrist and flipping her. May hit the ground with a thud. When May didn’t get up after a minute Alea said, “See what happens when you're not focused. This makes it like the fourth time I’ve beaten you like this.”

“Holy crap.”

Alea looked up to see Skye standing on the landing for the stairs. Before Alea could look back at May she was flat on her back. May was standing over her. 

“Don’t take your eyes off your opponent.” May holds out her hand and Alea takes it. May pulls her up off the ground and has to hold her up when her leg gives out from under her.

“Fuck, get me into the lab. I think you hit my leg a little too hard, May.” Alea leans heavily on May as she supports her on the trek to the lab. May gets her sat down in one of the two rolling chairs before backing off. 

“Payback for the hit to my shoulder.” 

Alea pulled up her pants leg as Skye walked into the lab. A bruise the size of May’s foot was already blooming up. 

“Is that a normal reaction?” Skye asks, taking a closer look of her leg.

“No. May, go get Simmons. Tell her to get her butt down here. Don’t tell Phil if you don’t have to.”

May leaves. Skye looks at Alea with a look of ‘what should I do?’

“Can you push me over to the center table?” 

“Yeah, sure.” Skye gets behind Alea. She grabbed a hold of the back of the chair and pushed her to the table. “How did you get May down? Ward can’t even do that.”

“Oh, yeah I guess you wouldn’t know.” Alea props her leg up onto the table. “When I was a teen I participated in the national science fair with my school’s team. We won and with that came an exposition space at the ‘74 Stark Expo. Do you know what happened that year?”

“I think so? Wasn’t that the year that the main hall exploded?” 

“Uh-uh. I was stuck under a boulder for over two days. Lost my arm. It was replaced by a prosthetic.” Alea pulls the sleeve off her arm to show the metal underneath it. 

“Strip, Carter,” Simmons demanded as she walked into the lab May followed behind her. She walks over to Alea as she pulls off the sleeve. She then walks over to the cabinet to pull out a syringe and a few tubes.

Alea pulls off her shirt before leaning up against the table to take off her pants. As she does so Skye gets up and pulls the blackout curtain across the front of the lab. When she turned back Alea was sitting back down and there was bruising covering most of her chest.

“Holy crap.”

“Carter, were you not paying attention to your counts?” Simmons asks as she sticks her with a needle.

“Last I checked, which was last night, they were fine. Wouldn’t have asked May to spar if I thought they weren’t. Anyway, this happens. It will always happen.” Alea sounded resigned to her fate.

“Shouldn't be.” Skye walked over to Alea as Simmons stepped back.

“The world isn’t perfect, nor is it fair. I learned that when I was ten and basically disowned by my own family.” Alea grabbed some gauze and put pressure on the needle prick. Simmons walked away with the vile and put it in the centrifuge.

“Your family disowned you when you were ten?” 

“Basically. By the time I was fourteen, I truly had been.” Alea pulls the gauze away as Simmons comes back with a bandaid treated with something. 

The machine beeps and Simmons pulls out the sample and lets out a little sigh. “I’m going to have to get Coulson.”

“No, you don’t. May has the same blood type as me. You can use her blood for a transfusion.” Alea's eyes were pleading for it to happen that way.

"May, are you fine with that?" Simmons was surprised that Alea didn't want Coulson to be informed and for it to be his blood used. Every time Alea had been in the infirmary for the same thing in years past it had almost always been Coulson's blood.

"Sure." May sat on the table and allowed Simmons to draw her blood into a blood bag. 

“You’ll need somewhere to lay down while the transfusion is going on.”

“The quinjet I bought isn’t suitable for it. I don’t have a place on the jet.”

“You can stay in my bunk.” Skye looks nervous as she says it. 

“Thanks, can you go get my jacket?” Alea stands and slips on her pants before grabbing her shirt. 

Skye nods and heads out of the room. She comes back with Alea’s jacket and shoes in hand. She hands them over and Alea puts on her jacket but leaves her shoes off. 

“Carter,” May makes Alea look at her, “how do you turn off the autopilot?”

“Tap my phone screen and ask Edwin to turn it off. If he asks if you want to stop recording the flight say no. Need some data on how this thing handles when landing.”

Once Simmons pulls the needle-free of May’s arm she leaves the lab and heads to the cockpit. 

“Let’s get you up to Skye’s bunk.” Simmon’s grabs the equipment that she needed before heading out of the lab. 

Skye helped Alea make her way up the stairs and soon they had her laid down on Skye’s bunk. Simmons started the transfusion. They left her there, closing the door as they left the bunk. Alea fell asleep not long after.

When she woke two hours later the transfusion was still going and Alea grabbed both the bag and pump before walking out of the bunk. She could see the team gathered in the command center and walked over. She was glad that the platelets in May’s blood had already started to work. On the monitor was a video feed from Amador. There was text on the screen saying that she could sleep.

"So, I'm going to take a stab at it and say that Amador can see through a prosthetic eye that is also a camera?"

"Yep." Fitz moved to the side to allow Alea to step up to it. Prosthetics were her specialty after all. 

Alea placed the pump and blood bag on the table before speaking, "This being recorded?"

“Of course it is Alea.” Coulson looks over at her. He gives her a look that clearly says ‘we’ll talk later.’

“Is there a way to see what it looks like?” 

“Yeah, it has backscatter on it. That’s how she was able to see which case had the diamonds.”

Skye moved the video back some and paused it when it showed the eye implant. Alea walked around the front of the table to take a good look at it. Almost dragging the pump and bag off the table because she forgot it was attached, it was only saved by Simmons picking it up before it could even get close to the edge. After a while, Alea turns back to the table and leans against it. Her arms laying on the tabletop.

“So, what’s your take on her eye?” Fitz asked as Simmons put the pump back on the table. 

“My take? It isn’t a good one.” Alea leans father down and puts her forehead on her hands.

“What do you mean?” 

“I’ve only once figured out a conceivable way to transfer signals from the nerves in the body to the brain. Though this was with spinal nerves. Never have I ever got anything to work with the optic nerve. And I’ve been working on it for a decade or two.” Alea takes a deep breath, “ The scary part of Amador’s eye is that it uses a design that I made about ten years ago.”

“Where were you storing it?” Coulson looked worried.

Alea took her head off her hands and looked up at Coulson. She had a distressed look on her face when she answered. “SHIELD’s servers. The ones that are set up for protecting inventions. You can only access them on site.”

“Do you mean to say that someone inside of SHIELD is working in this?” Coulson was barely breathing as he waited on an answer.

“Hopefully not, but anything’s possible.” Alea sounded defeated. She stood straight and those gathered could almost believe that she was over fifty years old, her face showing every one of those years that her body didn’t.

Alea picked up the pump, turned, and walked out of the command center and up to Coulson’s office. She sat down on the couch and waited for Coulson to join her. She leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, knowing that this would have happened sooner or later. SHIELD wasn't perfect as shown by the fact that Alea was almost certain that there were at least a few moles inside of SHIELD.

It wasn’t long before Coulson joined her. He leaned against one of the visitor chairs before signing a question mark.

“Mind abilities give me information.”

Coulson taps his fingertips to his temple. 

“Things like moles in SHIELD.”

Coulson nods and moves to sit next to her. Most people never realized that Alea only knew so much because she’d spent years worth of time in other people’s heads. Most never realized that she kept secrets that almost certainly could have killed other people. That the fact that she’d been doing what she was doing ever since she was ten took a lot out on her, and she seldom got any sort of respect for it. Alea had been glad when he figured out her last name and promised that he wouldn't tell anyone. He’d been her touchstone ever since that day.

“Phil?”

“Yes?”

“When you get Amador I really want to know who is betraying SHIELD like they are.”

“I’ll see what she knows.”

“Thanks.” Alea pulls away from Coulson and goes to stand next to the windows. Coulson leaves her be. He leaves his office and goes to find both Simmons and May.

He gathers them both and shoes everyone else off to go do other things while he talks to the two. Once he gets his answers about Alea’s condition he goes back up to his office to see Alea asleep on the couch.

He walks over to her and picks her up and carries her through the side door and to his bed. He pulls off her shoes and jacket before covering her with his blanket. He makes sure that the IV tubing isn’t tangled before sitting down at his desk.

He works on his paperwork until the pump goes off. He gets up and turns off the pump before grabbing the medkit that was next to the bed and opening it up. He pulls out a cotton ball and a roll of medical bandaging. He pulls the tape off the IV needle before putting the cotton ball on top of it and sliding the needle from her skin. He puts the needle on the ground next to him before wrapping the cotton ball with medical tape. He cleans up the mess and puts the pump with the rest of the medkit. 

He then leaves the room. Sliding the door shut as he does so. He goes back over to his desk and sits down to work until it was time for him to watch the video feed. About an hour later Skye comes in. She gives her update before saying that she wasn’t sure where May was.

Coulson got up and walked down to the command center to go through the video and see if there was a hint of where May went. They found in the video the hotel receipt and Coulson tells Skye to wake Alea and get to work on the video feed. 

Skye goes up to Coulson’s office and slides open the door to his room to see Alea still sound asleep. She walked over to her and shook her awake. Alea jolted awake and sat up. 

"Phil need us for something?" Alea leaned over and grabbed her jacket and put it on.

“Yeah, he wants us to work on replicating the video feed.”

Alea nods and goes down to the command center. “So, replicating the video feed shouldn’t be hard.”

“I hear a but there though.”

“But, FitzSimmons better have something that we can use to make whoever is behind the camera not know that we have replicated the feed data and replaced it with our own.”

“I can go see if they’re down in the lab.”

Alea nods and Skye runs off. Alea grabs a tablet and starts working on the data signal. Skye comes back not long after with Fitz following her.

“I have a pair of glasses that are capable of recording backscatter video, and standard video with the same camera point of view, but the person using it cannot see it. Also currently not wireless.” Fitz holds up the glasses. They look like a standard pair of wire-framed glasses which was a minor miracle.

“That’s good. Let's get it up and going. Coulson’s went to go get Amador.”

They got to work. It took close to four hours for them to do so. It still wasn’t wireless, but they had to stop when May and Coulson came in with Amador. Alea went over to examine the damage that May did to her. It wasn’t much, and Alea decided to leave it because it wouldn’t be a hindrance to Amador. Then she decided to look at the eye implant.

“Coulson.”

Coulson turned to look at Alea. Her eyes had gone wide. “What is it, Carter?”

“The eye implant has a detonation system. I’m sure that they can activate it remotely.” 

“So, if they know we have her we are screwed?”

“Yep, go get Ward up. We have a mostly working system. He’ll be best to wear it because May’s shorter than Amador.”

"Will do. Ward's not going to like it." Coulson started towards the door and Alea made sure that Amador would be staying unconscious.

"He'll get over it. He's an agent he should be used to this."

Coulson chuckled as he opened the door. “Your right about that.” 

A little while later Coulson comes back into the room and dismisses Alea to work with Simmons on setting up to remove the eye. After they got the lab set up Alea fell asleep sitting straight up in a rolling chair propped up near the back door.

It was several hours after she fell asleep that she was woken by Fitz’s nervous voice saying that he’d cut it free when he figured out how to do so. She stood and walked over to see if she could figure out how to diffuse it, but she didn’t get a chance when Fitz cut the ocular nerve and tossed the eye into the bomb box. If let off a small bang before smoke started to rise from it.

“Well, that’s done. I’m going to see if I can’t get clearance to stay here longer.” Alea walks from the lab and up to her quinjet. The case was basically over and the only thing keeping them from getting in the air was the fact that Coulson was still on the ground looking for the person giving Amador her orders.

“Edwin, call Fury.”

**“Yes, my Dear.”**

Alea sat down and waited for the call to connect. She was pretty sure that Fury wouldn’t give a damn if she stayed or not, but she was also giving an update on Coulson.


	3. October 4, 2013

Alea walked out of Coulson’s office to see Simmons and Skye standing there. “What do you want?” Alea pushes past them to get to the stairs. 

“A.C. doesn’t allow anyone to get as close to him as you have these past few days. Why does he allow you?”

“‘Cause, he knows me extremely well. Not only that, but there have been times when we were forced to be close.” Alea walked down the stairs knowing that what she said wouldn’t get the two to stop. 

“What do you mean?” 

“She means that they’ve been stuck in the crappiest of crappy safe houses that only have one bed and absolutely no heat in the middle of winter. Isn’t that right, Carter?” May states as she came out of the cockpit. 

“Yep. I don’t regulate heat well and after I burned myself using a heating suit that I had I wasn’t allowed to use it anymore when I was asleep. So we ended up in bed together. Nothing more than keeping me from getting hyperthermia.” Alea turns to look at May before turning her eyes to Skye. 

May follows Carter’s eyes and nodded in understanding, “Carter, why don’t you show Skye some of the basics of fighting.”

“Sure, you coming Skye?” Alea makes her way down to the cargo hold. She pulls the mats out and has them set up before Skye makes it down. Alea does notice that Skye had changed out of her normal clothes and into something more fitting.

“So what are we going to be doing?”

“I was thinking about going over some of the more basic moves that are gone over at the academy. Definitely more advanced than what Ward has probably gone over with you, but not much.” Alea kicks off her shoes and steps onto the mat. Skye follows suit. 

Alea spends about two hours showing her moves before saying that they should probably stop. They pack up the mats in relative silence the thudding of the mats being the only sound. 

“Carter.” 

“What?” 

“You knew moves that I haven’t seen either Ward or May use. Why is that?” 

“Because I was taught to fight by the Howling Commandos. They started to teach me when I was four or five.” 

“What the hell?” Skye stopped and looked at Alea with bugged-out eyes.

“My aunt was Peggy Carter. Of course, I knew the Howling Commandos.” Alea looked up when she heard a knock on the railing above her. Coulson was standing there with a serious look. 

“Carter, Fury wants you back on base.” 

“Alright.” Alea goes up the steps and joins Coulson, “Did he mention which base?” 

“The Trisk.” Alea nods and heads up to her quinjet. Her phone was already in its dock meaning that Coulson had come up with it, and everything else she had. She put on the headset and said, “May, I’m I good to disembark now?” 

**“Yes, you are.”**

“Disembarking now. I shall see you later.” Alea buckles up before she pulls the disembarking leaver and holds on as the quin flips. She sets her coordinates to the Triskelion and wonders why Fury was recalling her now. Maybe something had gone wrong with Project Insight, but she’d just have to wait and see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, sorry for the short chapter, but my Calculus 2 class is trying to kill me. So yeah.


	4. November 5, 2013: The Hub

Alea Carter sat in her lab when a warning that someone was accessing the system came up. She knew that it was likely Skye, seeing as Coulson was on base. So she decided to watch which files she was accessing. 

“Edwin, give me the files that are being accessed.” Alea turned to a side computer that didn’t have plans for what seemed to be a prosthetic arm on it.

** “Of course, My Dear.” ** As Edwin said that the files that were being accessed popped up on the screen. They were the files about the on-going mission. It zooms in on the extraction data for the two agents going in, and that there was none. 

“Ed, who’s on the two-man team?” 

** “Agents Grant Ward and Leopold Fitz.” **

Alea stood and headed out of the lab. “Edwin, put the lab on lockdown till I get back.”

Alea doesn’t stay to hear Edwin’s answer. Instead, she makes her way up to operations. She needs to know if Coulson knew if Fitz and Ward didn’t have an extraction plan. She found him about halfway there with a thunderous look on his face.

“I’m going to guess that you didn’t know that Fitz and Ward didn’t have an extraction plan?” 

“Yes, and how did you find out?” 

“I got a warning that someone was accessing the system. Figured it was Skye and just watched what she was doing. She’d accessed the mission files for the Overkill mission. After that I had Edwin bring up the two people on that team. He gave me the names and I wondered if you knew if they didn’t have an extraction plan. Did you?” 

“No, and they didn’t either,” Coulson said just before he entered operations.

Alea followed him in and watched as Hand came towards them. 

“When were you going to tell me that my team didn’t have an extraction plan?” 

“You planned hundreds of missions just like this one. Barton, Romanoff, Carter all went in without an extraction plan. What’s the difference?” 

Alea stepped forward and stated, “Me, Natasha, and Clint. We knew it going in. They didn’t. That’s the difference, and frankly Hand you might want to learn it.” 

“Agent Fitz was untested in the field. Telling him that there wasn't an extraction plan could have caused him to not be able to function.”

Alea steps forward and pushes Coulon behind her. “I once went on a mission where I was told there was an extraction plan, but there wasn’t. Do you want to know what happened?” Alea felt Coulson’s hand land on her flesh hand almost gripping hard enough to bruise. “I watched the two-person team I was working with get killed. I survived only because of two things: one I have a metal arm, and two, my mental ability. The kicker? The mission wasn’t completed and thousands died because of it.” 

Alea pulled her arm from Coulson’s grip before heading out to the Bus. She was certain that Skye was going to go in and get them and might have convinced May to join her. It wasn’t like you needed a big team to do an extraction. 

She found Skye along with both Simmons and May. They were about to step into the elevator to go to the landing zone.

“Hold the elevator!” 

May turned and saw her. She reached over and hit the door open button. Alea stepped into the elevator and turned to look at Skye.

“Next time you think to do something like that have Simmons or Fitz bring you to my lab.”

“What?” 

“You accessed files that I have access to anyway. Also, you’ll get in less trouble that way.” 

“Carter, you’ll get in trouble for allowing them to do it,” May said.

“Yes, well. It doesn’t matter. Especially not in a case like this. I hate when the higher-ups lie about extraction plans.” Alea settles back against the wall. 

They make it down to the Bus and get on it when Coulson comes from the top level. He leans over and says, “We’re going on an extraction mission.” 

They manage to rescue Fitz and Ward before they were killed. Alea goes and asks May to stop back at the Hub before going on their way. May agrees and Alea heads up to Coulson’s office. He was already in it and looks at Alea with soft eyes.

“You know I never got the full details on why the Parkers ended up dead on that mission but was it because Richard knew that you guys didn’t have an extraction plan, wasn’t it?” 

Alea sat in the visitor's chair before speaking. “I never had concrete proof of anything, but I believe he knew that we didn’t have an extraction plan. Still not one-hundred percent sure why I brought his body back.” 

“Was it because of Peter?” Coulson stood up and looked at her.

“I guess?” 

Coulson walked over to her and looked at her, “Alea, it doesn’t matter why you did what you did. At least that man of Hydra is dead.” 

Alea nodded. She stood and hugged Coulson before getting ready to disembark.


	5. November 16 - 17,  2013: The Well

Alea put on her gloves as she made her way into Greenwich University. She knew that Coulson had been called in to help with the cleanup, but it seemed that he hadn’t made it there yet. So she set to work on separating the alien technology from the rubble of the building. It wasn’t hard for her to tell one from the other, but she had to correct several agents along the way. It was boring work until she heard Coulson’s voice telling his team to spread out and get sorting. Alea stood and found where Coulson was. Skye was still with him.

“Carter, I wasn’t informed that you were to be here.” Coulson took the clipboard that he was handed.

“Same about you. Anyway is it any surprise that Fury sent me here?”

“No. Have you found anything interesting?”

Alea shook her hand and handed Coulson a pair of gloves before grabbing one of the containers from the agent that passed them and shoved it into Skye’s hands. She looked at her with bewilderment.

“Stay with Coulson. Coulson can’t afford for you to get into more trouble on an official SHIELD zone.” Alea walks off to find more alien tech. She finds FitzSimmons and Ward starting to work in the back part of the building.

“They even have you working here on clean up duty, great.” Fitz plops down on the floor and pulls out a Spectrographic Analyzer.

“Yes, well I’ve worked with alien tech before. Also helped with Thor’s hammer.” Alea bent down and pulled out a chunk of what was definitely alien tech from the pile.

“Well then.” Simmons’ phone goes off and she pulls it from her pocket and declines the call.

“Who was that?” Ward asks as he comes back with a wheel-barrow of stuff and dumps it out.

“My mom and dad. They want answers as to what happened here. I don’t have any and I last talked to them before the Chitauri helmet incident,” Simmons answered.

“I wouldn’t do that for long. You’ll regret not talking to them in the long run, believe me.” Alea answered before walking off.

They spent their day like that, going through all of the stuff that was leftover from the Battle of Greenwich. It wasn’t even close to a quarter done when they went back to their various places to sleep. They started anew the next morning with tired eyes and hatred of sorting things.

It was still early morning when Coulson’s phone went off. Alea looked over at him as he answered it. He spent some time on it before gathering up his team and coming over to Alea.

“You want to join us for a mission?”

“I probably should stay here. Seeing as someone that knows something about alien tech first hand should probably stay here.”

“I’ll see you later then, Cater.”

“Right back at you, Coulson.”


	6. December 3, 2013

Alea was sitting next to Clint on his couch in his living room when her phone went off. Alea leaned over and picked it up. Looking at the screen she took in a deep breath and answered the call.

“May, what do you need?” Alea felt Clint stiffen beside her before he got up and walked across the room.

**“Coulson was taken.”**

“What the hell? Coulson was kidnapped? What happened?” Alea felt herself stand. She could hear Clint return to her side.

**“I’ll tell you later. Skye will probably get kicked off the Bus with her typical work here soon. I need you ready to pick her up.”**

“I will be. Anything else?” 

**“No.”**

Alea hung up her phone and looked at Clint. His face was ashen.

“You want to come with me?” 

“Of course.” Clint rushes off to gather his gear and to say goodbye to the kids.

“Edwin, tell me where SHIELD 616 is at.”

Edwin answers and Alea heads out to the quinjet to enter the coordinates. Clint joins her not long after. They take off and Alea tells Clint what she knows. Clint nods and stairs straight head.

“He’s alive. I know this. His link is still there.” 

Clint nods and they sit in silence. Once they made it to where the Bus was Alea kept them from the radars.

“Edwin,” Alea’s voice was tired and thin.

**“Yes, My Dear?”**

“Keep us out of radar range, but keep up with the Bus.”

**“Understood, My Dear.” **

Alea stands and walks away from the controls. She was half asleep and needed some sleep. But first, she falls back into her mind and finds Coulson’s link.

_ As she goes down his mental link it worries her. What was going on in his head wasn’t something that should be. No, he had no reason to be remembering his recovery in ‘Tahiti’. No reason at all. Alea was worried, but she was too tired to stay any longer in his head. So she pulled herself free. _

She laid down on the floor using her jacket as a pillow and found a comfortable position to sleep in. She falls into an uneasy sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will probably be the last chapter before I go back to school tomorrow, sorry. At least I'm not dead.


	7. December 4, 2013: The Magical Place

She woke up the next morning to see Skye standing there. 

“Good to know that Clint remembers how to interact with Edwin.” Alea stands and looks at Skye. She looked pissed. 

“Where do you want to go?” Clint asks.

Alea turns to see him still sitting at the controls.

“Is that Hawkeye? Anyway. I think LA would be best for me to be able to track a bank account, but I can’t. Not with this on my wrist.” Skye holds up her hand showing the tracking bracelet. 

“Did Hand increase the restriction level?” Alea asked as she motioned for Clint to fly.

“She did. Got a way to take it off?” 

“Nope. I could have easily taken it off without Hand knowing had she not increased the security level. Now, though I can’t without Hand knowing, which isn’t good. I’ll just have to do the typing instead.” Alea sits down next to Clint and looks over at the coordinates.

“Have you activated the cloaking yet?” Alea asks after a few tense moments of silence. Clint nods and Alea leans back. Alea motions for Skye to sit in one of the jump seats. 

They reach LA an hour later. They disembark and follow Skye as she goes down the street and grabs a newspaper and looks over it. She seems to find what she’s looking for and pulls the other two into an alley. Once there she turns to them and says, “So, there’s this man named Lloyd Rathman. He’s under review for fake Swiss bank accounts under his name.”

“Alright, so how are we going to get into his bank accounts?” Clint looked at her with appraising eyes waiting for her to answer.

“Well, I was thinking that I might just take his car? That way we can get into his house really easily without having to fake too much stuff to get him there? What do you think?” Skye’s hands shook as she spoke.

“That could work. I and Carter provide air support while you work on the ground till you get to the guy’s house.”

Skye nods and heads off after finding out where he likes to frequent. Alea and Clit make their way back to the quin. Once they make it back Alea takes the pilot's seat and tells Edwin to track Skye’s bracelet. They follow her to the house of Rathman and Alea orders Clint to stay on the roof to keep watch handing him the hearing aid/coms combo and slide her com in. She goes down and follows Skye into the house. 

Alea spots the security system and has Edwin block it’s outgoing signal. She follows Skye, who had changed into clothes closer to what May would wear, into the house. They make their way to the office space.

"So, what do we need to do?" 

"We can go about this two ways. One, we get Rathman here and have him sign into his account, or we just hack into his account."

"Get him here," Alea answers. 

Skye has her press the redial and they hope to hell that a man like him kept busy enough with work to have last called his assistant. Alea let Skye talk to the woman on the phone while she worked on a fake SHIELD ID for Skye.

Once they were both done they waited in silence for Rathman to return to his house. 

**“Rathman is approaching the front entrance now.”** Clint’s voice startled both of them. 

Skye left the small office first. Alea watched as she managed to get him back into his office before he asked about what she said. Alea presented him with her phone that had both their badges pulled up. He took it and looked at it before handing it back. He logs into his bank account after Alea and Skye almost give up on the fact that he even knows how to get into the account. 

From there Alea takes over working the computer. She finds what they need before they head back out to the Quinjet. Alea puts in the coordinates for the nearest desert. They got there just as a SHIELD SUV did.

Alea, Clint, and Skye all disembarked the Quinjet and met up with those in the SUV. It was the rest of Coulson's team. May nodded at Alea but glared at Clint.

“Carter, what were you thinking, bringing an Avenger with you?” 

“Barton knows, May. I’m not an idiot.” Alea shot back before they hear movement and all turn towards it. It was several men coming out of the other buildings around.

“FitzSimmons, Skye, go look for Coulson, we’ll deal with these men!” Alea yells as she starts to move. 

Alea attacks the closest of the men. She leads off the attack with her left arm to the man’s skull with all of her strength to baffling results. Normally her arm would have just went through the man’s skull or at least cracked it, but the man just fell to the ground. Alea shrugged and kept moving when an arrow embedded itself in one of the ones coming towards her shoulder.

The had managed to knock out about eight men before an anguished scream resounded around the entire base. The entire team turned towards the sound and started running. Alea and Clint easily overtook the rest of the team and made it into the building that held Coulson before the rest of them. 

Clint faltered at the sight that awaited them. Coulson was strapped down to some sort of device and was chanting, “Let me die,” endlessly. His face was covered in scratch marks and blood, his clothes were dirty and torn. The other person in the room was in a flower dress and earned an arrow to her shoulder from Clint. 

Alea quickly found the power cable for the machine before pulling it out of the plug. Coulson dissolved into tears as the machine powered off. Alea ran over with Skye following as Coulson tried to shake Clint off of him. 

“Phillip James Coulson! You’re alright! The year is 2013 and you’re lightly injured!” Alea commanded. It still didn’t get through to him so Alea entered his mind again. 

_The scenes flying though Coulson’s mind reinforced what she already knew was true. The things that they had watched on the TAHITI patients being done on him. Alea went deeper into his head to see what he could remember about his involvement in it. There wasn’t anything that she could reach now, and she knew that she couldn’t lock back his memories of being brought back to life. Alea went back to where she knew she could talk to Coulson to see him sitting dead-eyed in his mind._

_“Phil.”_

_Coulson reacted both inside and outside his mind. _

_“Phil, come back you’re safe now.” _

Alea was tossed straight out of Coulson’s mind at that point.

Alea watched as Clint embraced his husband. Alea could tell that Coulson wasn’t completely out of his mind, but was much closer to being so because he did respond to Clint’s movements. 

“Carter, how are we going to get him out of here?” May asked.

“The quinjet. We can meet up with your plane and deal with Coulson there. You guys can go back in the SUV with the woman.” 

“Not all of us are going to fit in the SUV. Not with a prisoner.” Ward goes over and puts cuffs on the woman.

“FitzSimmons and Sky can come with us on the quinjet then,” Alea says as she helps Clint drag Coulson off the machine. 

They walked him out between the two of them and makes their way to the quinjet with the other three following. Alea gets Coulson strapped into a seat and Clint sits next to him while Alea goes to get the quinjet into the air. Once she does she sets the autopilot and goes back to Coulson. 

Alea sits down next to Coulson and rubs his hand and arm to get him to relax. After he does so she starts to heal his various cuts and bruises. 

**“My Dear, we’re approaching SHIELD. 6-1-6. What do you want me to do?” **

“Keep us in the air, Edwin. I’ll land us in a few minutes, alright.” 

**“Yes, Dear.”**

Alea finishes up with a cut on his forehead before standing and going back to the pilot's seat and landing the quinjet next to the mobile command plane. 

“Clint, my love what are you doing here?” Alea heard as the jet landed.

“I wasn’t going to leave you somewhere. You never left me, so I won’t leave you.” Clint helps Coulson stand and leads him off the jet. 

“Clint, Coulson’s room is at the top of the spiral staircase! He has a sliding door that hides the room in his office!” Alea yells at the two’s backs. 

“What’s up with the two of them?” 

“Clint’s married to Coulson. Has been since 2005.” Alea disembarked the jet just in time to hear Hand yelling at Clint. She sprinted towards the plane to try and stop Hand from yelling too much at Clint. He’d already been through enough having to see his husband like he was. 

“Hand! It’s my fault that he was with us. He already knew though!” Alea yelled as she started up the ramp. 

She watched as Hand came out of the door leading to the main part of the second floor. She stopped at the handrail and looked down at Alea. “You sure about that because he looked distraught to see Agent Coulson.”

“It’s more like he was distraught to see Coulson like that. They’ve been married for eight years now.” Alea made her way up the stairs and passed Hand, “Now if you’ll excuse me I need to talk to Coulson.” 

Alea makes her way through the jet and up into Coulson’s office. She shuts the door and locks it back and then makes her way to the small room to see the two kissing.

“Break it up you two. Coulson, I need to talk to you alone for a minute.” 

Both of them break apart with red spreading across their faces. Alea smirked as Clint passed her. Coulson stayed where she was on the bed and Alea sat down on the edge of it. 

“What did you want to talk to me about?” 

“What you saw while you were in that machine?” 

“I saw myself laying on a table, part of my skull removed. My brain was being manipulated by some machine. Two doctors were standing over me. One was Dr. Streiten. I think he has answers about what they did to me.”

“You are probably right about that. I’ll leave you and Clint for the night. I’m going to take him home tomorrow morning.”

Coulson nods and Alea heads out of the room and down to the couch and lays down on it before almost imminently falling asleep.


	8. December 16, 2013: Seeds

Alea made her way through the bus to meet with Coulson. She knew he’d been looking into what had been done to him, but she had a sneaking feeling that that wasn’t why she’d been called there. She knew the rest of his team was at the Academy, but not much else. It made sense why Coulson wasn't with them. He was dead to any agent under level seven. She made it down to the cargo hold to see him wiping down Lola.

"Coulson, you wanted to see me?" Alea stops a few feet from Coulson.

"Lea, what do you know of an 0-8-4 found in 1989?" Coulson wasn't moving. Alea could see the tension in his shoulders.

"What was it? There were several that year." Alea felt dread build up. Coulson was asking about something that happened within his first year. A time when SHIELD was much different and Alea wasn’t involved with fieldwork as much.

"A baby girl." Coulson’s voice was as tense as his shoulders.

"Not much about where and how she was found. Agent Avery brought her to me for a medical examination. There was nothing different or odd about her. Why?" Alea kept her distance but walked to where she could see Coulson's face.

"Skye was that 0-8-4. Were you the one to recommend that she be moved around?"

"Yes. They mentioned that it was going to be hard to keep her safe from whoever wanted her. I asked them if they'd thought about putting her into the foster care system. Move her about once a year. I redacted all of her files personally. The unredacted version never hit the SHIELD servers, so that's why no one could find it."

"Alea, tell me the truth. Did you watch over her?" Coulson looked up at her, his eyes bright with fury.

"I did. At times I picked the homes she was going to go to. Remember when I asked Clint about the foster homes that he and his brother actually liked? That was me looking for safe places to put her."

Coulson's face softened at that. Alea had tried hard to keep Skye safe. "Did you know what her legal name was?"

Alea shook her head. “I didn’t want it to be on SHIELD’s records. It was too dangerous.”

“You know the full details. I told May that I was done with keeping secrets. I am. I’m going to tell Skye.” Alea could see the fear in his eyes.

“Do you want me to help?” Alea placed her right hand over his clenched fist.

Coulson nodded. It was then that Alea realized why Coulson was so determined, he saw Skye as another daughter. Alea pulled on his arm until his head was against her chest. She could feel him shudder as he held back tears. “What if she hates me after this?” His voice was thick with unshed tears.

“Philip James Coulson, listen to me and listen closely. Skye will not hate you for telling her this information. There is no reason for her to do so. Not when she’s been looking for this information since she was little.” Alea forced Coulson to look at her. 

Coulson nodded and Alea led him up to his office. Once they got up there there was a message waiting on them telling them to get to the Academy as quickly as possible. Alea went and found May and told her to get them to the Academy quickly. It didn’t take more than an hour since they were already headed in that direction, but Alea was worried that the freezing had gotten worse. The last one had almost killed a kid and she was sure whoever was doing this could kill, not on purpose, but they could. 

Once they made it there May landed and all of the team excluding Ward got on. Then they were back in the air. Alea followed Coulson as he pulled Skye off to the side. “I want to tell you something that will be hard for you to hear. It’s about how you ended up at Saint Agnes.”

“What is it?” 

“The agent who dropped you off wasn’t your mother, she was part of the team that rescued you from whoever wanted to kill you.” Alea leaned against the side of the plane as Coulson continued to explain. As they went farther into the incident Skye broke down crying. As Coulson came to an end he wrapped her in his arms and Alea could see the bond that Coulson had formed with Skye. 

Alea left them to their devices and went to where FitzSimmons was staring at a screen. She could see the rising cold air in a tornado-like formation surrounding the northern part of the academy. 

“Alright, Ward is still on the ground right?” Alea asked, startling the two.

“Yes, we can call him and see if he can get there because I don’t want to fly through that.”

“He is. I’ll have Colson call him as soon as he gets done with Skye.” Simmons turns to look at Alea as she moves to look closely at the screen. She traces the outline of the ever-expanding cold and notices something. 

“The students would be evacuated to the boiler room, wouldn’t they? It’s the most protected spot in the academy.”

“Yes, they would. You are right it is the most protected spot, but it’s really close to where the storm is.” 

Alea places her finger on the map almost right on top of the boiler room. She traced her finger across the center of the storm and seemed to think about something. She doesn't say anything though just watching the storm on the screen.

Not long after Coulson joins them with a red-eyed Skye following him. Coulson walks over to Alea and puts his hand on her shoulder. Alea looks over at him and when he doesn’t say anything she goes into his mind. 

_“What’s up?”_

_“You look worried. None of the others can tell, but I know that brooding look from a mile off.”_

_“You’re right, like normal. This world’s logic is starting to fall apart. More so than normal. The incidents involving the Avengers, Extremis, hell that bloody memory machine, and now this.”_

_"Your point is what?"_

_"That something will happen and neither the Avengers or SHIELD will be prepared for it." _

Alea pulls from Coulson's head because of the shaking on the Bus. She looks up and the monitor as it shows them going over the storm. "A little warning would have been great, May!" Alea yelled as she grabbed onto the console.

The Bus soon got close to the ground: her, Coulson, and Skye all ran off the ramp to see two boys. One was on the ground and Alea was almost positive that he was already dead. The other looked frightened about his invention and while Coulson and Skye drag the boy on the floor onto the Bus, Alea leads the shaking boy into the Bus.

As the ramp closed Alea noticed the trunk that had some type of machine knocked over in the bed of it. The device wasn’t still operational and Alea would be back to get it after this was all over. She handed the shaking boy over to Coulson and went to look over the other. 

When she placed her flesh hand over his chest and felt out all she could feel was cold. His heart had stopped and she was positive that he didn’t have brain functions anymore. “He’s dead,” Alea said as she stood and made her way to the cockpit. 

“May, land us soon. I don’t think this storm will last much longer.” 

“I hear you. It’s already calming down out there.” May responds. 

After about another ten minutes in the sky, they land and Alea watches as Skye heads off the jet and towards the main building. She decides to follow her. She watches as she stops in front of the Wall of Valor, her hand rubbing over a name about half-way down the wall. Alea went and stood next to her and saw that the name that she was running her hand over was Avery’s name.

“She wasn’t even related to me and she risked her life for me,” Skye whispered.

“She was dedicated to her job. Most agents would rather have a pure and innocent child live instead of them. Most of us know that we are tainted beyond recovery and some know that the blood on their hands cannot be cleaned off ever.” Alea looks over at the first name on the wall, James B. Barnes. “Every one of these agents died doing what they believed was right, none of them regret their actions. From Barnes, who was neither SSR or SHIELD to those who died in New York. Every name on these walls does not regret what they died for and I can promise you that Avery doesn’t regret saving you.”

“What do you mean?” Skye turns to Alea her eyes wide.

“Avery came to me to make sure you weren’t injured in some way. You’d been so quiet they were worried that there was something wrong. Nothing that I could see, but you still had someone after you and so we placed you into the system. There wasn’t ever something odd following you after that, but it was still better to leave you floating around, moving. Your records were sealed and only the agents involved knew.”

“AC told me that he’d asked someone in SHIELD to help him find out about me, it was you wasn’t it!” Skye shouted.

“No, Phil didn’t. He knew that I would tell him everything I knew without care for protocol - which I toss out the window so much sometimes it’s a wonder that the WSC hasn’t found a way to get rid of me. He probably went to Hawkeye if I had to guess. And he wouldn’t go the normal ways to get information from the SHIELD servers because of me. So, it would take him longer than normal.” Alea looks back at the wall and notices that it wasn’t the same one that had been up the last time she’d been through here. It was missing Rogers’ name next to Barnes’. She knew that Fury had got the first section recommissioned, around 2012 when they had to get the last section updated, but she wasn’t prepared to not see Rogers’ name.

All Skye does is nod. Alea sighs and decides to share the real story of the wall, not what was in whatever handbook Skye might have gotten her hands on.

“You know, I was part of the reason behind the Wall. I’d mentioned to Director Carter that we needed a way to honor those who had died in the line of duty. They were working on the Vietnam Memorial Wall at the time and I thought it was a good idea to do something like that for the SSR/SHIELD agents. They’d not get recognition otherwise anyway, and I didn’t like that. Director Carter agreed and we worked on making sure that we had all of the names of those who had died in the line of duty. We got into quite the fight about Captain Rogers’ inclusion though.”

“Really?” 

Alea nods and snorts before continuing, “I thought he should, he’d been missing almost forty years at that point and I didn’t think he was still alive. Director Cater didn’t agree with me. Said he was still alive. I won out in the end, though. We both agreed that his name should go after Sgt. Barnes’ though.”

Alea watched as Skye walked over to the opposite end of the wall. “Rogers’s name isn’t here now though.”

“That was Fury’s decision. It made sense, Rogers wasn’t dead, he didn’t belong on the Wall, not yet at least. So his name was removed.” Alea walked forward before kneeling. She reached forward and touched the SHIELD seal above the name Mary Parker. 

“Who’s that?” Skye asked, noticing the way that Alea touched the wall.

“A good friend of mine who was killed in front of me. Anyway, you should probably get heading back to the Bus before Phil gets worried about you.” Alea watches as Skye leaves. 

Alea pulls out her phone and dials a number that wasn’t saved on her phone. The person who she called answered almost immediately. **“What do you need, Carter?”** It was May.

“Can you go up and land my quin somewhere on the grounds?” Alea asked as she sat down on her butt.

**“Sure, you are not coming back with us then?”** There was shuffling on the other side of the phone.

“No, I think I’m going to head back to New York for a little while, go see my nephew. I don’t want Phil to know though.” 

**“You owe me then, Carter. You got that?” **

“Understood, agent. Call me when I need to repay you.”

May just huffs before hanging up the phone. Alea falls back on the floor and thinks over the fact that it had been almost a year since she’d had the time to see Peter. Fury be damned she was going to New York. She was going to see her nephew and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this taking so long. I didn't mean for it to... I started working part time and I am a full time student. Also, I temporarily don't have a job because I work on my university's campus and it's closed because of COVID-19. 
> 
> Also the next part isn't going to be fun for me to write.


	9. December 29-30, 2013: TRACKS & TAHITI

Alea was sitting with Peter and his only friend Ned helping the two with their homework when her phone rang with some upbeat, happy song that Alea had yet to have Edwin have change it back to her normal ringtone after last staying with Clint. She looked at the caller ID to see it to be Coulson.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes boys.” She stands and ruffles Peter’s hair as she walks past.

Alea answers the call as soon as she was as far from the boys as she thought would keep them from hearing what the conversation might fall to, “What do you need, Phil?” 

** “Skye’s been injured. Zentrum said they couldn’t do anything for her. I’m taking her to Bethesda. That’s where I was treated after New York.”  ** Coulson’s voice shook with fear.

“You weren’t treated there. I’ll meet you in the airspace over Bethesda to see if I can’t do anything for her.” 

** “Alright. Garrett is currently docked on top so I don’t know what you're going to do about that.”  ** Coulson’s voice had steadied a little.

“His jump jet?” 

** “Yes.” **

"Alright. Land then. I'll meet you there. Got that?" Alea's voice was harsh, but she was trying to get through the man's worry.

** "Yes. See you soon." **

"Back at ya." Alea hangs up the phone before walking back to the two boys.

Both of them turn to look at her. “Are you leaving again, Aunt Lea?” Peter looks up at her with eyes that are begging her not to go.

“I am. I’ll try to be back in time for the ball drop. I promised you two that I’d take you and I’m going to try and keep it.” Alea ruffles Peter’s hair before looking at Ned, “Ned, your parents said they’d be back at eight. Can I trust you two not to get into trouble before then?”

“Of course!” they chorus. Alea nods and picks up her bag from the wall and puts it on before grabbing her motorcycle helmet and making her way out of the apartment. She sprints down the steps almost running over several people in the progress. She makes it out of the building and throws her helmet on before tossing her leg over her motorcycle. She speeds off towards Manhattan. 

She makes it there not ten minutes after leaving the Leeds’ apartment. Having taken liberty with the speed limits and traffic laws. She directed her bike into the underground parking garage at SHIELD HQ and without getting off of it headed to the jet bay at the back. The doors opened as she got close and she knew that she’d left the loading bay open to her quin after realizing that Coulson might just reach out to her again in a hurry. She was glad that she had because that meant she could just drive into the quin and not have to worry about someone scratching the paint on her bike after she left. 

“Edwin, remote start.” Alea turned off the bike and dismounted as she gave the order. There wasn’t a response from the AI, but the engine came to life under her feet and she could hear the turbines spinning up. She took off her backpack and set it against the wall as she made her way to the pilot's seat. She was soon up in the air and on the way to Bethesda. “Edwin, can you bring up the imaging for Skye that was taken at Zentrum?” 

** “Yes, my dear.” ** A holoscreen popped up in front of her and Alea’s eyes bulged and her breath hitched.  ** “The report says that two bullets entered and both were removed after she reached the facility. Though the process of trying to remove the bullets and them entering has created extreme damage. Both of her lungs are struggling to work even on the ventilator, and she is likely to go into septic shock due to the damage to her intestines and stomach. There is damage to the heart and her organs are starting to shut down.”  **

“Fucking hell. This had to be someone inside of SHIELD orchestrating this. Someone that knew that I could heal, but it takes time and the more complex the injury the longer it takes. Ed, can you start compiling a list of anyone who has seen me heal. Leave off: Clinton Barton, Philip Coulson, the Barton-Coulson kids, Laura Barton, the Parkers and Coulson’s team excluding Ward.”

** "Yes, my dear. It will take a few days to complete the list." **

Alea nods and radios to the private airport that they use in DC when they aren't able to park at the Triskelion and lands. She gets her quin put into a hanger and payment arranged before asking, "Edwin, where is SHIELD 616 right now?"

** "A small airport just on the other side of Bethesda." **

Alea nods and takes off on her motorcycle. Making it to the Bus about half an hour later. Alea pulls up onto the ramp of the Bus and parks between Lola and the SUV. She gets off and tosses her helmet into the passenger seat of Lola and makes her way up to the pod system behind the Lab. She can see Agent Triplett standing up near one of the front pods and she went up to him. Her footsteps caused him to back at her and he gave a small wave before pointing at the pod he was standing across from. 

Alea looked into it to see Skye hooked up to many different machines. She hit the button beside the door to open it before walking into the room. She took a deep breath of the stale recycled air as Simmons and Coulson turned and looked at her. Coulson steps back and allows her to go up to Skye on that side before he leaves the room. 

Alea places her vibranium hand on Skye’s neck. Making sure that the ring on her pointer finger is against Skye’s skin. As she gets the readout from it on the leans of her glasses she winces. The damage that the SHIELD team in Zentrum reported was actually less than what her ring found, Alea wouldn’t be able to heal all of it, but most of it couldn’t be stitched back together - not with the people that were currently on the Bus.

“Send Agent Triplett in. He’s had some medical training and I’m going to need all the help I can get. Simmons, how much blood do you have on hand?” Alea asks, putting her flesh hand flush against Skye’s chest.

“A few bags.” Alea nods and Triplett enters the small room. Alea soon got started on the healing, but as she healed the most pressing part, her lungs, her heart started to give out. “This isn’t going to be a good process. Simmons go get Phil.” Alea switched her focus to her heart and started to heal that.

“You know, I remember one time when I was really little that you healed me with just a touch. I kinda thought I was imagining it when I got older, but I guess I wasn’t.” Triplett adjusted the IV line flow to give Skye a bit less pain med. 

“I think I remember that. You fell down the steps and broke your arm. Can you drop the pain meds a bit more? I don’t want her lungs completely giving out. Also, raise the pressure by just two notches on the ventilator.” 

Triplett nodded and Alea looked up when the door slid open again and both Coulson and Simmons came back into the room. “Phil, I don’t know if I can save her. I start to heal her lungs and her heart starts to go, and once I start on the heart the lungs go. I can only keep this up for so long, and I don’t know how much longer that will be.”

Alea watched as Coulson's face fell and he ran out of the room. Alea looked over the rim of her glasses and into Simmons' eyes and entered Simmons’ head before looking back down at Skye’s damaged body.

_ “Simmons, does Coulson have you or Fitz looking into anything I should know about?”  _

_ “Yes, what happened to him after New York.”  _

Alea was glad that she had gotten FitzSimmons used to her entering their heads before now. She didn’t know if she could trust Triplett, even though she’d known him since he was a baby. Though if she thought hard about it it was because she didn’t know how loyal he was to Garrett and wasn’t going to reveal TAHITI to anyone that she couldn’t trust. 

_ “How far have you gotten into his file?”  _

_ “GH.325, do you know anything about it?”  _

_ “Yes. I’m going to connect us to Coulson, so don’t be surprised about him entering our conversation.” _

_ Simmons' mental form nods. Alea reaches out and down the mental link for Coulson before dragging part of his mental form back with her. Coulson’s form willingly goes with her to Simmons’ head. They both settle in near where Alea was before. _

_ “Simmons was just telling me that you know about GH.325? Is this information correct?” _

_ “Yes, Fury gave me my file from after New York. What do you know about my resurrection?” _

_ “I am the only Level 11 operative in SHIELD. I knew after I felt you come back to life what Fury had done. It was one of two things that he started to work on after  _ that _ incident in 1995, Coulson." _

_ "The one with the Blockbuster?" _

_ Alea's mental form nods. Simmons was looking between the two with confusion but didn't speak up. _

_ "Alright, I can see why you kept quiet about it then. Do you know where the GH.325 is kept?"  _

_ "Yes. It's at an old SSR base. I'll give Simmons the coordinates. Hopefully, we'll be able to save her." Alea breaks the connection between her and Coulson. She then tells Simmons the coordinates of the Guest House before pulling free of her head as well. _

Alea hears Simmons leave the medical pod as she notes that Skye was as stable as she was going to get for now and took her hands off her. Triplett didn’t say anything as Alea took a handful of steps back and knocked into the wall before sliding down it. She allowed for her head to hit her knees and wondered if what happened to the others that went through Project TAHITI would happen to her. The writings that she was still trying to put together, even though she hadn’t seen anything in them the last one hundred times she’d tried.

** “My dear, your heart rate is elevated and erratic. I’d suggest you’re calming methods before you fall into your head.”  ** Edwin’s voice came from Alea’s pocket where she’d tucked her phone after getting off the call with Coulson earlier that day.

When Alea didn’t move even an inch Agent Triplett got worried and moved over to her. He kneeled in front of her and went to shake her shoulder when his arm was gripped by Coulson who had entered the room almost silently. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. She can throw you though those windows if provoked.”

“Then what do we do?” Triplett asks standing up.

“Nothing. Edwin didn’t catch it soon enough. She’s fallen back into her head and she’ll come out when her body finally calms back down. I do wonder what set this off though. Do you have any idea, Edwin?” As Coulson spoke he carefully reached down and pulled Alea’s phone from her pocket. 

** “No, I have no idea. It was sudden and I’m unsure how long my dear had been falling. She’s not done this in a long time, not since before New York.” **

“Ed, you mean to tell me that she’s not wearing her sensor array?” Coulson placed the phone on the edge of Skye’s bed.

** “She’s not worn it in several months. She removed the reminder protocol two months ago.”  **

Coulson curses before pulling something small from his pocket. He places it against Alea’s skin and it wraps itself around her neck like a choker. “What’s her body temp?” 

** “95.8 Fahrenheit.” ** Coulson curses again and pulls off his jacket and lays it over her. Making sure that she could still breathe before walking out of the medical pod with Alea’s phone in his hand. Triplett followed him out allowing the two women to rest.

It wasn’t long before they were getting close to the Guest House. They had split into two groups: those leaving the Bus and those not. Alea, May, Triplett, and Simmons were staying behind and Coulson, Garrett, Ward, and Fitz were going to see if they couldn’t have Skye treated there. The ground team was going in blind because the only one that knew anything was still catatonic in Skye’s medical pod.

“Fitz, have you connected Alea’s phone into the comms system?” Coulson asked as they got ready to go. 

“Yes, do you think that Edwin will even be able to help? I mean none of us have really ever used the AI without Alea.”

“Of course he will. Alea knew something about this Guest House place meaning that Edwin has something about it stored in his memory banks.” 

“Then why don’t we just take her phone instead of having him in the comms?” Ward asked as he loaded his bag. 

“Because Alea has more protocols on her phone then strictly necessary. If it gets to fare from her it will stop working. That’s so that someone trying to get information off her phone can’t. It holds too much information about SHIELD on it for her to be comfortable with it being far from her.” Coulson answered. He slid on his vest and they got ready to go.

The Bus lands and May comes down to talk to them before they leave. “Remember this isn’t an official SHIELD base. You don’t know what will be going on down there.”

They nod before disembarking. May watches them go before heading to Skye’s medical pod. As she looks through the window she can see the purple fading from Alea’s eyes as she comes back to herself. May enters the pod and walks over to Alea. “Are you feeling better?” 

Alea shakes her head before pulling Coulson’s jacket to herself. “They go into the Guest House?” 

“Yes, Triplett, Simmons and I stayed behind. I do wonder if you know the end to the protocol.”

“Used to. The end changes every other month and the one I know is from just after Coulson’s death. The start stays the same. They won’t want to use the one that Edwin has.” Alea moves to stand and moves Coulson’s Jacket to where she was wearing it properly. She moves to watch Skye’s vitals.

“I’ll relay that to them. I’ll see you later.” May walks out to leave Alea alone with Skye. 

Alea moves to the outside of the pod when she sees both Triplett and Simmons standing at the window. “You doing better now?” Triplett asks as she walks up to them.

Alea nods and looks at the file that Simmons had spread out on the lip. “That Coulson’s file?” Simmons nods and Alea looks over her shoulder and sees that she’s looking at the meds used during Coulson’s procedure particularly. 

“GH.325,” Alea murmurs, “I hope there’s some left down there.” 

“What do you mean?” Simmons turned to look at Alea.

“It was something that was being synthesized down there. There no doctors on-site if they aren’t needed. And this site has been shut down for close to a year now.” Alea flips the page on the file, “It’s the only one that is needed to keep Skye from dying. The rest from what I understood was because he was dead.” 

“That’s good because that’s all I told Fitz to get if there wasn’t anyone down there.” 

It was then that they were distracted by the heart monitor in Skye’s room going crazy. All three of them rushed into the room with Alea planting her hands flat on Skye's chest as soon as she could. She focused on trying to heal both Skye’s heart and lungs enough that she would stay stable enough for them to get the stuff from Fitz and Coulson. She was still coding when Alea could hear two sets of rapid footsteps coming down the hall. Fitz burst into the room with Ward following. Fitz held out a small test-tube with GH.325 in bold typeface down the side.

“Coulson gave his permission for this to be done right?” Alea asked, taking her left hand off Skye and taking the tube. Fitz nodded too out of breath to speak. 

“Someone give me a syringe,” Alea commands taking her other hand off Skye. Triplett hands her a partially unwrapped syringe. Alea pulls it from the packaging and pushes it into the top of the tube before pulling all of it up into the syringe. She pulls up Skye’s top and pushes the needle into her stomach just above her belly-button. She pushes down the plunger. Just before she goes to pull the syringe free she hears Coulson yelling, “Don’t give it to her!” No seconds later he comes into view and Alea pulls the syringe free. 

When she looked up at Coulson she could see the distressed look on her face. A look that she’d only seen once or twice before. One that told her that he had seen the Kree body. “Sorry, Phil, there’s no going back from this,” Alea says just before Skye’s heart rate went sky high as she seized before it leveled out.

“Carter, Simmons, my office.” Coulson orders as his face turn to a stony facade, again one that Alea hadn’t seen in a long time. Before he turns and leaves. Alea and Simmons follow him up to his office. Once they're both of the women watch as Coulson tosses off his vest before turning to them. 

“Simmons, I want you to run tests. See if it has changed anything. I want you to also do the same with me. For now, though, make sure that Skye is stable.” Simmons nods before leaving the room. After the door is closed back Coulson starts to talk again, “Alea, tell me did you know what GH.325 was made from?” 

Alea gives a little nod before jumping into Coulson’s mind.

_ “Like I said last time, Project TAHITI was a project of Fury’s after Danvers fell to earth in 95. This and the Avengers Initiative. I knew that it was alien biology that let it work, but I wasn’t more involved with it.”  _

Alea pulled free before leaving. She knew that lying to Coulson will come to bite her in the ass sooner rather than later, but she had to. She went down to the cockpit and sat down next to May. “Where are you going to be dropping Quinn off at?” 

“The Fridge.” 

“Can we stop somewhere close to DC, so I can leave? I need to pick up my quin from that airbase that we use.” 

May nods and Alea leans back in the seat. They sat there in silence only interrupted by Fitz returning Alea’s phone to her. Alea tucked her phone in her pocket. They soon arrived at the private airport and Alea headed back to her quin. Once she was in the air she decided to take her qiun back to her house in Virginia instead of the New York HQ. 

“Edwin, open the bay doors. Is one of the Koenigs in?” Alea asks.

** “Billy Koenig is on base.”  **

Alea nods as she lowers her quin down. See she’d chosen the house that she had back in 1978 because it had been unknowingly built extremely close to an old SSR base. She’d expanded the old base to underneath the house not long after and after Fury took over the two of them had completely redone it. 

“Have him meet me.” 

** “Yes, my dear.”  **

Alea lands the quin and starts to push her motorcycle out of the quin when a man comes running up to her. Alea nods at him and says, “Something is coming and you and your siblings need to be ready. I’m not sure that Fury has noticed the changes, but he soon will.” 

The man nods and Alea walks over to the freight elevator and goes back up to ground level. Once she was up there she got on her motorcycle and headed for New York. She figured she’d get back with just enough time to shower and take a nap before heading over to the Parkers’ apartment to get the kids and head to the ball drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the last part, of this part. Next up is the year 2014 and all of it's issues.


End file.
